


(Just Like) Starting Over

by Reis_Asher



Series: The World's Greatest Love Songs [5]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fix-It of Sorts, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Penis In Vagina Sex, Running Away, Shower Sex, Temperance Ending (Cyberpunk 2077), Trans Kerry Eurodyne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:49:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29714676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: Kerry waits to see what will become of Johnny and V after the ending. Will Johnny come back to him, or will it be V who emerges, leaving Johnny's engram behind in Mikoshi like nothing more than a fading memory?
Relationships: Kerry Eurodyne/Johnny Silverhand
Series: The World's Greatest Love Songs [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149056
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	(Just Like) Starting Over

**Author's Note:**

> This is the conclusion to the World's Greatest Love Songs series. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Kerry is trans in this series and his genitalia is referred to as slit, hole, cunt. There is penis in vagina sex.

Kerry paced his mansion, bare feet padding on the tiles as he waited for a call. The news channel was on the big screen, but he had it muted. There was a media blackout. There had to be. There was no way V had just… gone out quietly, was there?

Kerry bumped a glass off a table with the side of his leg. It shattered on the floor. The sheer indifference he felt snapped like a thread under strain. Piping hot anger reached a rolling boil, rushing into the hole in Kerry’s heart until it bubbled like an underground hot spring. Kerry reached down and picked up another glass, throwing it at the wall where it smashed. He ran over to his own personal bar, sweeping his arm across the countertop. Bottles of tequila and empty glasses broke, the light bouncing off a million tiny fragments of his shattered life. It felt good to destroy things. Better than standing still waiting for the end. He could wreck the whole house, set it on fire, and the only thing he’d care about plucking from the flames would be Johnny’s guitar.

He caught his bare foot on a piece of broken glass and cursed as pain shot through his foot. No pain editors for him. He hobbled over to the couch and slumped onto it, picking at his foot. A clean cut. The glass was out. It would heal. He didn’t give a shit about the sting. It actually felt good to release his pent up anxiety in a physical form.

He looked back up at the TV screen, drawn by moving images and bright colors. A Militech Basilisk careened through a construction site, gunning down corporate security. A Basilisk? He hadn’t seen one of those in years. Kerry caught sight of a man wearing an Aldecaldos jacket in one angle and reached for the remote with trembling hands to enable the sound.

V and Johnny had gone to the Nomads for help with their problem. It made sense. Johnny had once spent time running with a clan, and V had done a bunch of jobs for the Aldecaldos and one Panam Palmer in particular. But a construction site? Why? Weren’t they supposed to be gunning for Mikoshi, in Arasaka Tower?

The words “Attack on Arasaka Tower” ticked across the bottom of the screen. Nancy read out the details. The Nomads had used a drill to reach the base of Arasaka Tower from the construction site. The tower was on lockdown, and everything had been quiet for several hours. There was nothing else to report.

Nothing to do but wait. Kerry was sick of waiting for death. He resented how he was always the one left behind, the one who couldn’t offer any meaningful backup when push came to shove. He wasn’t even the sidekick to his friends’ adventures. He could give nothing more than moral support, and that was worthless against corpo armies.

Johnny’s guitar lay across the couch. Kerry pulled it over to him and held it, strumming for no reason in particular. He couldn’t make music right now. He simply wanted to feel close to Johnny. For Johnny, wherever he was, to know he was thinking about him. And V, too. The knowledge that it was all out of his hands was so much to bear. He was back in 2023, listening to the news, waiting for any word on Johnny Silverhand once more.

His anger burned out like a candle down to the wick, all his wax melted into a puddle at the base. He was so tired. He’d spent his whole life waiting for Johnny. What was another day? A few more hours?

* * *

Kerry closed his eyes, putting down Johnny’s guitar after another unsuccessful session in his private studio where he’d made noise instead of music. He deleted all the recordings and stalked out of the soundproof room, wondering if he’d ever sing again. The past month had blurred together, each day the same. Wake up, try to go through the motions, fail, quit, and drink instead.

The Nomads’ assault on Arasaka Tower was old news now. Citing the Basilisk, Arasaka had accused Militech of backing the attack to weaken Arasaka’s position in Night City. Tensions were high, another corpo war bubbling in the pot on the stove. Sooner or later it would boil over into full-scale war, and a fresh set of gonks with fresh faces and big dreams would sign up for a lifetime of PTSD.

At least the Nomads weren’t being hunted, though Kerry had no way of knowing if they were all dead. The Aldecaldo clan could have been wiped out and he would have been none the wiser. Kerry had put out some feelers—a couple mercs from the Afterlife, and a few rumors Rogue picked up—but he hadn’t found out much. The Aldecaldo camp was gone, though there was no way of knowing if they’d left Night City and gone to ground in the wake of the attack. V had disappeared off the map. Perhaps V had gone with them to start a new life, ghosting him entirely. Kerry smarted a little at that, but he wouldn’t have wanted to be on the other end of that conversation either. _“Hi, Kerry, just lettin’ you know that Johnny’s gone and I’m skippin’ NC.”_ Nah. It would have sucked for both of them to pretend they were cool after that.

Still, he’d thought V had more honor than to disappear without a trace. He didn’t seem the type to shy away from unpleasant business. Especially not the kind who abandoned his friends without so much as a goodbye call. Hell, he would have taken a text. Something to let him know V was still breathing and the chip hadn’t boiled his brain alive, taking both V and Johnny with it. 

There was no way of knowing their fate, and it was killing him inside.

Kerry turned down the call from Us Cracks. Blue Moon’s voicemails grew more and more distant until they simply stopped coming. He couldn’t go on tour with them like this. He hadn’t finished his song. It remained in an incomplete, messy state, just like him. 

At some point, life was supposed to go on, but he was living in stasis, trapped in this particular loop that offered no closure. He spent his days and nights alone, eating takeout in his increasingly messy home. The glass was still on the floor where he’d left it. He didn’t care. Nothing really mattered. If something didn’t happen soon he was going to die like this, buried in a heap of his own trash, a testament to pointless consumption. Johnny would have hated that for him.

The doorbell rang. The last time, he’d been dumb enough to go running only to find his manager on the step. He’d given Kovachek a black eye, and MSM Records had terminated his contract. That should have given him something to feel bad about, but he was numb to it all, like he was watching his own life from some distant plane.

The doorbell rang again. A fist pounded on the door. Kerry stood up, drunk, only half aware his robe was hanging open. Well, if he exposed himself and the media got a good eyeful of his cunt, the screamsheets would have a ball with it. Like he hadn’t done more scandalous things on and off stage with Johnny.

He unlocked the door and pulled it open. He blinked, trying to clear his blurry vision. Johnny was standing on his doorstep. But it wasn’t Johnny. It was V—if he’d been dressed up to look like Johnny. He wore Johnny’s hairstyle—black, loose around his shoulders. Johnny’s sunglasses were perched on his head and his leather pants strained tight in all the right places. He’d even been chipped with a replica of Johnny’s prosthetic arm. But V’s cyberware shone, the lines on his face catching the light leaking out from inside the house, giving him an otherworldly aura.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Kerry asked. He didn’t feel as hopeful as he expected. Mostly nauseous, with a vague sensation of dread looming somewhere nearby like a shadow assassin waiting for the right moment to strike. “What happened? Where’s V?”

“That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.” Johnny didn’t sound like Johnny, but he didn’t fully sound like V, either. There was no mistaking his tone, however. Heavy. Somber. In mourning.

“Is V…?”

“Are you gonna let me in or not, Ker?” Johnny pushed past him and slammed the door shut. “Medias were trailin’ me the entire ride up here. The whole o’ Night City wants to know where V is. Every media in NC wants a piece of him. Had a hard enough time keepin’ my head down all this time.”

“It’s been a month, Johnny,” Kerry said. “I thought I wasn’t gonna see you again. I thought you were dead. You and V both.”

“Thought you’d be happier. You got what you wanted. I’m back. This body ain’t dyin’ anymore.” Johnny walked over to the nearest bottle of tequila and poured himself a glass, knocking it back in one shot. He poured himself another.

Kerry shook his head. He could feel the tension in Johnny, and he didn’t like it one bit. “Thought you’d be happier too, Johnny. You tried to kill V and take his body, once. Now it’s yours and you’re pissed about it? What happened in Mikoshi?”

Johnny finished his tequila and slammed the glass down. “Alt separated our engrams with Soulkiller, and then that fuckin’ gonk V went with her beyond the Blackwall. Told me to take the body and go back to you. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Like he just fuckin’ _quit_.”

“V…” Kerry had suspected as much, but it was hard to hear it. He’d clung to some tiny sliver of hope that V was still inside somewhere. That they’d found a way to merge and coexist inside one body. It was a long shot, given what he knew about the science, but the whole thing had been crazy enough he’d hoped anything was possible.

Johnny kept his head bowed, his eyes cast in shadow. “Tried to make this body more like my own. Thought it might help things be less weird, but that’s never gonna happen, is it?”

“Probably not.” Kerry took a seat, pulling his robe around him tightly like it might serve as armor against the truth. His hands shook like he was about to play a crowd of fifty-thousand strong. “Pour me a glass of that, will ya?”

Johnny obliged, pushing the glass across the table. Kerry downed it in one gulp. The burn offered no relief. His stomach gurgled and he wondered if he was going to puke. “So… what now?”

“He died for me, Ker. For _us_. How can I possibly be worth that when I fuck everythin’ up? I thought about leavin’ NC. Had a bus ticket booked and everythin’, but I couldn’t turn my back on you. I still gotta see him someday in the afterlife. Coulcn’t look him in the fuckin’ eye if it turned out he sacrificed himself only for me to delta on you.”

Kerry managed a dry laugh. “Typical Johnny. Just ghost me again, huh? Leave me wondering for the rest of my life what happened to both of you with no closure. You fuckin’ asshole.”

Johnny shook his head. “I don’t wanna fight about it. Don’t wanna be stuck in some self-destructive spiral where I destroy every ounce of happiness we coulda had. Don’t you see it, Ker? I gotta change. Startin’ now.” He took the tequila bottle and upturned it, letting the liquid pour out onto the floor until it was empty. He slammed the bottle back down on the table. “I quit smokin’ and I’m gonna quit drinking. Drugs. I’m done with all that gonk shit.”

“Johnny?” Kerry cocked his head and looked into Johnny’s eyes. He was dead serious, his eyes as bright as they’d been back in the day when he was about to write a new song. V had gifted him not only his body but a source of inspiration, and Johnny was beautiful bathed in it.

“I gotta be worthy of his sacrifice. You too. We can’t do it by sittin’ around bein’ sad about all the shit that shoulda, coulda, woulda.” Johnny stood up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on the city. “How about we leave NC, Ker? Just you and me. I’m outta the merc business for good, and I heard the label dropped you. We’ve said all we have to say. How about we leave Night City to the kids full o’ dreams and just _live_?”

Kerry laughed, his eyes widening as he came to stand beside Johnny at the window. “You fuckin’ kidding, Johnny? We built our entire lives here. We are Night City. It lives and breathes in us.”

“City of dreams. We had it all, but at what cost? Face it, Kerry, we’re done dreamin’.” Johnny took his glasses off and Kerry could see the sincerity in his eyes. It took his breath away. He wondered if perhaps V was there, somewhere behind those eyelids. Not consciously, but in Johnny’s changes. In the way he held himself now, looking towards a future that extended beyond tomorrow and the day after that. Or maybe this was maturity finally coming to fruition in a man who’d been denied it by an early death.

Kerry placed his hand on Johnny’s shoulder, feeling the joint where flesh met cyberware. “You _really_ wanna go out there and be a couple of nobodies? Give all this up? It doesn’t have to be that way. You could tell everyone the truth and we could stage a comeback tour. It’d be epic.”

“Bein’ somebody ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, Ker. Judgin’ by the state of this place, I think you know it. There’s nothin’ worse than hittin’ the top. Getting everything we ever wanted was a monkey's paw. Destroyin’ Arasaka Tower didn’t change a goddamn thing in the long run. Gettin’ rich didn’t solve all your problems. Maybe V knew that too. He got as famous in this town as he was ever gonna, but it didn't bring back the friends who died along the way.”

“You might be right.” Kerry said, staring down at his hands. “You could teach guitar to some disgruntled teens with an axe to grind. I could start a music store, sell instruments to wannabes and rich corpo pricks who wanna hang ‘em on the wall. You really think we’re cut out for that?”

“Figure we got as good a shot as anyone,” Johnny said, placing his metal hand on the glass. “Thought I wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, strikin’ back at Arasaka, but maybe I just wanted to die. Can’t do that anymore. Not with V’s soul restin’ on my conscience.”

Kerry nodded. “Can I ask you somethin’ without you leaping down my throat? Did V… like me?”

“Who knows?” Johnny shrugged. “We bled together. At some point, we lost track of who was who. Sometimes, even now, I have a thought that’s not entirely mine, and I wonder if maybe he’s still in there.” He tapped his temple. “But it’s not the same. I can’t talk to him or feel his presence. All that’s left are the lessons I learned from him. Never thought he’d do such a thing… He was too good for this place, but he beat it. He didn’t let it eat his fuckin’ soul like I let it take mine. Now I gotta wrestle it back. For him. For us.”

Kerry rested his hand on top of Johnny’s. “Let’s do it. Let’s go tonight.”

“An’ here I thought it’d be a tough sell.” Johnny let his hand drop from the window and grabbed both of Kerry’s. “Maybe you’ve been waitin’ for this your whole life.”

“Could be,” Kerry whispered. Their lips met, the kiss a mixture of the ones Kerry remembered. There was fire, but it wasn’t the type to burn him to ashes. It was tempered with patience, the promise of things to come. Of hope, a future beyond the next five minutes.

It was absolutely intoxicating.

“Johnny, ah—” Kerry groaned as Johnny’s hand found his crotch and started to rub at his slit through the silk robe. Johnny silenced him with kisses, one leading to another, barely giving Kerry time enough to breathe before he was on him again. Johnny steered him to the couch and they fell onto it, gasping and giggling like they were two prom kids in the back of Johnny’s car.

Johnny grinned. “You’re wet, Ker.”

“And you’re hard,” Kerry observed. “You got an implant, huh?”

“Had to accept V wasn’t comin’ back. I wasn’t gonna change a thing, but that’s not what he wanted. He told me to live my best life. He gave me this body. I figured I had to make myself as comfortable as possible.”

“S’all right, Johnny. You don’t have to explain it.” Kerry brushed Johnny’s lips with another kiss. “He gave us a second chance. I’ll always be grateful for that, but I don’t want it to come between us.”

“Somethin’s gonna come between us.” Johnny quipped. Kerry unzipped his fly with a wry smile, letting his impressive dick slip out of his pants. It flopped obscenely onto his thigh, and Kerry couldn’t help but lick his lips.

“Just like the real thing,” Kerry whispered.

“Real one was bigger, if I remember,” Johnny preened. “Had to settle for this.”

“Uh-huh. If you say so.” Kerry climbed onto Johnny and straddled his lap, rubbing his slit against Johnny’s erect dick, his robe hanging in Johnny’s line of sight like a tease. Johnny reached for it, gripping the satin in his robotic fingers and tearing it away like a piece of paper. The stitches ripped, the sound of material yielding only making Kerry hotter.

“That robe cost ten thousand eddies,” Kerry gasped.

“Good,” Johnny growled. “I’ll clean my cum off with it later.”

“So I take it you’re not giving up sex as part of turning over a new leaf?” Kerry teased.

“Not a chance in fuckin’ hell.”

Kerry laughed, a kind of relieved madness descending on him as he crushed their mouths together and let his instincts take over. Johnny didn’t smell quite like Johnny, but the scent of fresh sweat mingling with his own stale odor was enticing as he kissed and sucked at Johnny’s neck hard enough to leave a mark.

He reached beneath them to line up Johnny’s cock with his hole and slid down onto it with a gasp. The smile across Johnny’s face and his gorgeous lidded eyes stood out as a thing of beauty, and he marveled at a universe which could deliver such delights. Which could return lost souls to life, pushing back the final frontier. There would be consequences down the line, but Kerry didn’t care. He was here with Johnny, years of grief rolling back, tears being sucked backwards up into his eyes, the clock rewinding decades of missed time.

But it had come at such a price. A life for a life. Nothing was without cost.

_Thank you, V._

Kerry lifted his head and gazed out of the window as he rode Johnny’s cock slowly, savoring this moment. Night City could never be worthy of V’s sacrifice. If they stayed, it would suck them dry over the remaining years, turning their love to stone. Something about this city soured dreams, curdling the milk of hope and prosperity like lemon juice. Johnny was right. They had to leave. It was time.

But first, this.

Kerry stared into Johnny’s eyes. He’d had them changed back to his natural eye color, and Kerry lost himself in the darkness of them as he sped up the rhythm, moving his hips in tune with some inner music. Johnny cupped Kerry’s face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs across the implant lines on his cheeks.

“Feels so good to touch you.” Like it had been a thousand years, not just a few weeks. But Kerry supposed there had to be a difference between borrowing someone else’s body to drive around in and actually owning it. This wasn’t the original he’d loved and lost back in ‘23, but it wasn’t V, either. This was Johnny reborn, back after a long vacation in Mikoshi. Here to stay. Forever.

Johnny lifted his hand and gave him a gentle slap. It was welcome, reminding Kerry that he was really here, and this wouldn’t be a bittersweet dream to be lost with the advent of the dawn. Kerry rode him harder, rubbing his t-dick as Johnny filled his hole over and over. Johnny threw his head back and spasmed as he came, shooting his load deep inside Kerry’s cunt. He batted Kerry’s hand away and jerked Kerry to orgasm with his thumb and forefinger. All Kerry could do was sag, impaled on Johnny’s cock, and sob out his pleasure until he was sated.

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,” Kerry gasped like a mantra, a prayer said with his whole heart and soul. He collapsed into Johnny’s arms, gasping for breath. He blinked away tears that threatened to spill. There would be time for feelings later, once they’d fled the oppressive city that was gunning for their love. He swallowed the lump in his throat and traced lines on Johnny’s chest, kissing his replica dog tags which still held his legal name. Robert John Linder. He’d probably go back to that in their new life. It was a common enough name that few would think anything of it. Of them.

“Is that why you took so long? Figurin’ things out?” Kerry whispered.

Johnny sighed. “Stared up at the ceilin’ in a motel room like I’d deserted all over again. Wonderin’ where I went wrong. I shoulda have been able to save him, Ker. I was supposed to go. I was the invader in this body.”

“Maybe he didn’t wanna be saved,” Kerry said. He slipped off Johnny’s cock and rested his head on Johnny’s chest, listening to his heart beat. “Ever think of that? Maybe he wanted to rest and was fine with you takin’ the wheel. He went through a lot, you know. Died and came back. Not many get to do that. Perhaps he was satisfied with how shit went down. Last time I saw him, I think he’d already decided. He didn’t seem conflicted. He seemed… at peace.”

Johnny nodded. “Still doesn’t make it right. If it wasn’t for Arasaka and their fuckin’ chip—” Johnny squeezed his eyes shut, gripping Kerry hard enough to hurt. “Thinkin’ about it won’t change it. Trust me, I tried.”

“Dunno how I should feel about it,” Kerry admitted. “I miss him, but you’re _back_ , Johnny. I can’t be angry about that. I’m grateful, if anything. V was a hell of a guy, and he gave me my fondest wish. I can’t find it in me to be mad about it.”

“He was somethin’ all right.” Johnny stood up, zipping up as a sigh escaped his lips. Kerry could tell he was jonesing for a smoke. “Best pack ‘fore the sun comes up. If this place gets its claws into us, we won’t go. We’ll get sucked into its false promises all over again.”

Kerry nodded. He picked up Johnny’s guitar. “This is it. And a change of clothes, a shower. I don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to the rest.”

“We could set it on fire,” Johnny suggested. “Give the city somethin’ to gossip about.”

Kerry shrugged. “Nah. Leave the gates open, let the homeless move in. Some merc can have the car if they can figure out how to klep it.”

“We’re not takin’ the car?” Johnny asked. “What, you wanna walk outta here?”

Kerry clapped Johnny on the shoulder. “No, Johnny. We’re taking the bus. Like two travellin’ musicians, busking for a dime. That’s how we started, isn’t it?”

“Ker…” Johnny grinned. He pulled Kerry into his embrace, stopping for a kiss. Kerry melted into it. He dragged Johnny to the shower and they bathed naked beneath the spray. Kerry didn’t protest when Johnny lifted him up against the wall and thrust inside once again. He groaned as Johnny fucked him hard and fast, laughing as they both came together. They emerged from the shower like two drowned rats.

“Maybe we should wait,” Johnny suggested. “Get a good night’s sleep.”

“No,” Kerry said. “It has to be tonight. Can’t you see? Night City’s already puttin’ its hooks back in you.”

“Yer right,” Johnny admitted. He wistfully gazed out of the window and Kerry distracted him with a few well-placed kisses.

They dressed in Kerry’s bedroom. Kerry threw a few of his favorite clothes in a bag and put Johnny’s guitar in its case. He picked a favorite of his own and handed Johnny a decent gun.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Kerry said. He turned and looked out of the window. The city was alive, calling to him with whispers of wealth and fame. They no longer appealed. What he had with Johnny, that was all that mattered. All that had ever mattered.

* * *

The bus pulled away. Kerry sat with his head resting on Johnny’s shoulder as the sights of Night City passed them by. He thought he might feel compelled to stop the bus, but Johnny’s hand clenched tight around his arm, keeping him close. As the city turned to desert, the desire faded, and Kerry wondered why he’d stayed so long at all. Better the devil you know, he supposed.

He sat up and pulled his hood down. They were across the border now. If anyone recognized Kerry Eurodyne and Johnny Silverhand, he could dismiss them as a cover band. Legends like that only left NC to tour, and they sure weren’t putting out a new album.

Not officially, anyway. Kerry did play Chippin’ In at a reststop CHOOH2 station for a few eddies and change.

“Wow, you look like the real Eurodyne,” a guy said, transferring them a few eddies for snacks before he turned to Johnny. “You could work on your Silverhand, though. The face ain’t quite right, you know? Nice try, though, and damn, you’re good with that guitar.”

They laughed about it as the bus pulled out. Kerry chugged on a NiCola and reached for Johnny’s hand. Their fingers knitted together, flesh and steel as one as the dawn light rose in the east, signaling the dawn of a brand new life together.


End file.
